(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for extracting data from an engineering drawing file format.
(2) Description of Related Art
It is common in the field of manufacturing to make use of an electronic repository of design data such as computer aided design (CAD) software packages for the definition and description of machinable parts. In particular, in the field of aerospace engineering, it is common for engineers and other appropriate personnel to annotate the information contained in a CAD file so as to produce Manufacturing/Quality Work Instructions (MQIs) and to generate First Article Inspection (FAI) documents for use by both internal and external suppliers of parts. With reference to FIG. 1, there is illustrated the present process by which information is manually retrieved from a CAD file and manipulated to be formatted so as to be utilized in an MQI or an FAI.
CAD drawing 11 is manually marked-up or “ballooned” to include balloon numbers 13. A balloon number is a unique identifying number encapsulated in a circle drawn in close proximity to a part number to which it refers. While any manner of uniquely identifying unique parts may be utilized, it is common in the art to utilize such a system of ballooning. Once the relevant parts have been annotated with a balloon number 13, the information recorded upon CAD drawing 11 is manually transcribed into an FAI format 23 as illustrated in FIG. 2. With reference to FIG. 2, there is illustrated an intermediate format 23 known in the art. Intermediate format 23 is a hand written description of the desired parameters transcribed from CAD drawing 11. In the example shown in FIG. 2, intermediate format 23 records a sequence number, a blueprint location 17, and a characteristic of the part. Usually, sequence number refers to the unique number contained inside of balloon number 13. The blueprint location is the coordinate on the blueprint where the part is located. Lastly, there is usually recorded at least one characteristic of each part. With continued reference to FIG. 1, the information recorded upon intermediate format 23 is transferred, usually through a graphical user interface, into a database. This is accomplished through data entry interface 15. Data entry interface 15 is comprised of a plurality of text fields, radio buttons and the like through which information may be entered pertaining to each part delimited with a balloon number 13 on CAD drawing 11. For example, a blueprint location 17, in this case “4D-1”, and the feature type 19 designating that the diameter of the part is to be 1.0±0.001 units are entered. Additional information may be entered, including but not limited to, quantity of characteristics 50, feature description 51, safety characteristic 52, nominal size 53, and tolerance 54.
Once all of the information contained in intermediate format 23 has been entered in this manner by a data entry interface 15 into a database (not shown), the data so stored may be used to generate one or more final reports 18. Usually these final reports take the form of either an MQI or an FAI. Final report is created using data displayed and entered upon data entry interface 15. Additional information 56 may then be added to data entry interface 15. Such data may include, but is not limited to, general text that adds clarity to the requirement and drawing notes.
Unfortunately, the process described above is prone to errors as the data is entered by hand, is reformatted, and often times has mental calculations performed upon it by the person or persons entering the data. What is therefore needed is a method for extracting the data contained in a CAD file in an automated fashion so as to remove user error, and avoid excessive delay in moving from the completed CAD file of a part through to the generation of the MQI and the FAI.